DS Children AKA Rascals
by Thor2000
Summary: Angelique and Barnabas are married, and she just loves her children with him. But her son is a handful, and when he's supposed to be grounded, he vanishes with his cousins!


PART 1

Angelique felt she was always cleaning as she picked up toys and hid them from her son in the secret room off the parlor to teach him a lesson. The eight-year old knew a lot of his things were behind the bookcase, but he wasn't strong enough to pull back the heavy secret door by himself. She just continued cleaning and working to make the Old House into a home. Barnabas Collins looked up and over his Hemingway book at her tilting back one of the chairs in the room and recognized from experience her look of upset annoyance and frustration.

"Oh no." She grieved under breath.

"What is it?" Barnabas stood over her.

"Remember last week I gave him a peanut butter sandwich and then wondered how he ate it so fast."

"Of course." Barnabas remembered as she produced the sandwich now half-eaten, dried out and stuck to the bottom of the chair cushion.

"I assume it's my turn to have a talk with him." Barnabas raised an eyebrow as he showed a wry smile in the raising of his son.

"No, I'll do it." Angelique rose and brushed one of her long blonde locks out her face. "You always seem to cave in later. At least when I confront him, he knows he's in trouble."

"Sometimes..." Barnabas added. "I think I'm in trouble too."

Angelique's face slowly began to be taken over by a small smile that filled her cheeks and added a mystical spark to her blue azure eyes. As she thought of her son, though, a trace of upset emotion took her over as well. On the other hand, she was not often immune to her son's wiles. His big soulful brown eyes poking out from under that thick patch of dark brown hair on his head often just made her heart fall in love with him all over again. She loved him very much, but now, she had to be strong. As she headed up the stairs, she heard her three year old daughter Sara taking peacefully to her Barbies as if they were real people. Formerly Josette's room, her little angel's room was neat and tidy as Sara asked one doll after another their wardrobe requirements. Every thing had a place and each place had thing.

William's room was another matter. Buckets of collected seashells littered the room with matchbox cars and clothes hung from anything and everything. Boxes of food laid spilled for ants, drawers sat open, the bed once made up was askew and pulled into the shape of a tent. Empty boxes were strewn around the small war zone. Everything that vanished on the estate eventually turned up here and yet, the boy sat in the center of it running his toy train around mountains of dirty clothes, houses of stacked crayons and strewn pages ripped from magazines. Sitting green army men on the electric tracks, the boy would laugh out loud as he ran over each one with the train.

"Would you look at this room!" Angelique's eyes were on fire. "There isn't a place to walk!"

"What's wrong with it?" the boy asked innocently.

"You are the messiest person I have ever seen!" The former sorceress told her son.

"But I'm just a little boy!"

"Do you know where I found this!" Angelique held up the old sandwich.

"Oh, you found that, huh?" The boy smiled into a giggle.

"Do you know what this means?" Angelique asked. William did know. Used to that sort of question, he just sighed, stood up, walked over to the bed and bent down over it - the standard pose for a spanking.

"Darling," Angelique crushed a few seashells and broke some crayons under her feet as she entered the room. Sitting on the bed, she pulled William into her lap until their faces were a few inches apart. She looked motherly into his brown eyes.  
"I love you very much, but I was not put on this planet to be your maid."

"But I'm just a…"

"Little boy, I know." she smiled at him. "But guess what? This little boy can no longer eat in the parlor and is grounded for a week."

"Aw mom..." William watched as his mother puckered up and kissed him.

"And you can clean up this room before your father sees it." she added. "I'll be back to check on you in a minute." She headed out as her son sat watching her stride out determined to make this punishment stick without resorting to place a spell on him. The namesake of his Uncle Willie, young William Collins sighed while twisting his body round back and forth and looked at his littered room.

"What's wrong with it?" he asked out loud.

PART 2

William Benjamin Collins was the only one of the current Collins children to ever attend kindergarten. He attended school for one year, but when Maggie announced she would home-school Jamison and Amanda, her own children with Quentin, she was unofficially made the family governess again. Willie and Carolyn's son, J. R. became a part of the group, and then his younger sister, Lizzie. Out of a corner bedroom in the downstairs East Wing, she started the tenets of writing and reading and even spent part of the time story telling to the group of four to eight year olds. William was already adept in writing his name and reading, and both Sara and J.R. knew their math, but Jamison, her own son, had no patience for his mother also being his teacher and often tested her patience. Whenever Carolyn and her mother, Liz Stoddard, asked if Maggie wanted another person to help, Maggie just pointed out that after living through their Uncle David, nothing fazed her anymore.

"William," She looked up in the Collins classroom while lessons wrapped at three o'clock. "You go straight to the Old House. Your mom says you're grounded."

"Didn't she tell you?" William looked up at her. "She changed her mind. I'm no longer grounded!"

"She did?" She was just as suspicious when William grinned to her. She'd had practice with her own son's lies. "Oh, so if I phone her at the Old House, she'd say you're okay?"

"Uhhhh…" William looked at Jamison and then his sister while he looked for a response.

"Get going!" She turned him to the door and padded his but as a warning to a spanking.

"Aunt Maggie!" William shrieked a bit upset. She had obviously ignored the outburst as William followed his best friend, Jamison out of the room. They two of them headed down the hall to the exterior of the dining hall and then right toward the long foyer. Their Aunt Carolyn kissed them both and put their coats on them. Behind them, her six-year-old son J.R. rushed to catch up.

"Can I go play?" The youth beamed his grin up to her.

"Okay," she relented. "But you'll be with Jamison, William is grounded."

"Okay," The boy had already forgot as he rushed out. His brown hair was cut short and spiked on top. Through his shorts, his juvenile legs raced to the end of the veranda and jumped off to the front lawn. Under the bright sunny sky, Jason Roger Loomis looked hard and quick and noticed his cousins already nearing the pool house that had been built on the old green house. He started calling and racing to catch up to them. "Come on, guys, wait up, you guys, come on guys..."

"Oh man," Jamison scowled and looked back as William stood and waited. "Why does he have to come along..."

"Hey, J.R.," William knew how to lose annoying tagalongs already. "I think I hear your mom calling you." By time J.R. figured out his mother wasn't really calling him, William and Jamison would be long gone!

"No, she's not..." The six year old resisted having fallen for that trick more than enough times. "Where you going?"

"The Old House," William answered. "Me an' Jameson are going to play with my trains."

"Oh..." the little kid followed behind his cousins as they tried to lose him. They ran ahead trying to leave him behind, but his short little legs were just as fast as their own. At the tree line, an old path on the remains of a former wagon trail cut through the woods on the estate for the Old House. A healthy adult could make the walk in twenty to twenty five minutes; children with a steady diet of soda and candy could make it in fifteen to twenty minutes. Halfway down the path, he had almost caught up to them where a creek crossed the property heading for the cliffs.

"Hey guys," J.R. pointed to a structure off the path almost obscured by trees. "What's that?"

"The old barn..." William begrudgingly answered.

"What's in it?"

"Nothing." William tried to ignore him. He started whispering to Jamison about how to lose their little shadow. Liking the idea, Jamison began giggling.

"Show me." J.R. asked as he climbed over a fence barring them entry to the field before the barn. Forgetting his grounding, William sighed and went after his youngest cousin to keep an eye on him. If J.R. got hurt without him, he'd be in trouble and it wasn't worth it. Not willing to be alone, Jamison then followed to keep an eye on them both.

PART 3

William had already forgotten his grounding as he, Jamison and J.R. rushed to play in the old Collins barn. It was actually nothing more than a vast shed collapsing to the elements as the boys rushed to re-explore it. It was J.R's first time in it as he looked around the forgotten junk and rust and then looked up into the rafters. Old stalls once held horses long gone and a set of doors extended to a weed and tree filled carriage path pointed toward the gates of the estate. Forgotten objects meant for the care of horses rusted on the walls. Deserted horseshoes were covered the roots of weeds and unfamiliar blacksmith utensils rested exposed to the ages. It had been years since anyone used the barn for horses. As William and Jamison tried climbing to the loft, J.R. saw something interesting tied up against the ceiling rafters.

"What's that?" he asked.

"It's old boat." William recognized the small canoe pulled up and hanging between the beams. "That would be so cool."

"How do we get it down?" Jamison noticed the rope still hanging it up there was still several feet out of their reach. He looked to William, William looked at him then they both looked together at their tagalong. Maybe J.R. was going to come in useful after all.

"Yep," J.R. looked back. "How will we get it down?"

Back at the Old House, Angelique sat alone in the parlor darning and wondering why her son had so many holes in his socks. Barnabas and Quentin were off doing whatever grown men did, and she just sat alone appreciating the empty house. There were no screams, no yelling and no fights going on. She then looked up and beamed as her five-year old daughter entered the Old House alone from her lessons at the main house. Standing and gliding up to her little darling, she helped the little angel off with her coat, hung it up and then noticed the girl was alone.

"Sara, where's your brother?" She asked. "Didn't he walk down with you?"

"I don't know." The blonde angel answered truthfully.

Several hundred feet away on the estate, William and Jamison had talked J.R. into climbing the twelve feet to undo the  
rope holding the forgotten canoe. The small lad shook the end of the rope loose that then loosened something else. J.R. heard something give way as part of the canoe came loose and hung from the end. William and Jamison screamed and ran for cover hoping they didn't get hurt, or even worse, killed as part of the old roof caved in and the canoe felt right on top of them. Running for safety, they stopped a few feet outside the old barn while a huge dry cloud of dust partially obscured their forgotten cousin.

"I got it down!" Covered head to toe in dirt and dust, J.R. grinned unfazed and unhurt.

"You better not have broken it!" Jamison glared at J.R. a second and noticed that the canoe was now swinging an inch off the  
ground. Unhooking it off the rope, they were soon dragging it off for the water under Widow's Hill several yards away. All they had to do was follow the creek to the bottom.

An hour later, Barnabas Collins strolled slowly and surely into the Old House. Hanging his silver wolf-headed cane and then his wrap, he realized he had had a good day perusing antiques from the Eighteenth Century. Some of them he recognized from when he was a mere man and not a former vampire. A few pieces had belonged to the McGruders, the owners of what was now Rose Cottage. One clock had belonged to August Collins and one desk he had favored once existed as part of the furniture in the office of Giles Sawyer, the original editor of the Collinsport Gazette. His memories of the past were delayed as Angelique dramatically turned to him. Her blue eyes were consumed with worry at the idea of her son not coming home.

"Angelique?" He had never noticed her so distraught. "What is it?"

"I can't find our son. I searched the entire path." She admitted sadly defeated. "There's no sign of him."

"He could not have just vanished." Barnabas realized. "Maybe he's still at the main house."

"No, I called up there." She looked to him for answers. "Maggie said she had sent him down a hour ago. I… can't think… I… That boy is supposed to be grounded!"

"Call Quentin and Willie." Barnabas reached for his wrap and cane once more. "We'll scour the estate!"

"William, darling." Angelique looked out the front window. "Where are you?"

At the waters beneath Widow's Point, the three boys had taken and dragged the canoe into the water and climbed in as the  
waves bobbed them up and down. They laughed and splashed water for a while. They used the long oars in the boat as best as they could as they wiled their way down the coast. They had chased after birds and tried catching octopi swimming at the water surface. They had tried reaching a boat anchored off shore and they had drifted under and through tame rapids beating the shore around Shipwreck Point and the base of the old abandoned lighthouse. A flying fish had landed in J.R's lap and he screamed and Jamison had almost turned them over to see what he thought was a sunken ship. William meanwhile became concerned for leaks in the old boat.

"I wish I had my fishing pole." Jamison spoke out loud.

"Let's go back and get it!" JR suggested.

"Hey," William shrieked lifting his head up. "Where'd the land go!" Their three heads began looking around the top of the canoe as the tiny craft jostled and shook under their movements. They all screamed out one word.

"MOMMY!"

PART 4

Angelique was a nervous wreck as she waited in the Main house with Maggie, Carolyn and Liz. It was almost midnight and the three young heirs of Collinwood were nowhere to be found. Maggie wandered in circles unable to eat as Carolyn nervously sat in the big chair with her mother. Angelique was the only one really coming close to losing it. Standing over her, David Collins, now twenty-three years old and a college graduate, flashed upon his childhood and was relieved the torch had been passed on to a new generation of juvenile delinquents. In his absence, someone had to explore the estate and start unplanned fires on the property. Adding to the support, Rachel Fillmore-Collins, Roger's third wife, carried over another pot of tea to try easing the emotions, but the over-wrought mothers did not want to be eased until they had answers.

"Where is my baby!" Angelique cried, her eyes tearful. "I'm a good mother, aren't I? You don't think he ran off because I grounded him, do you?"

"Angelique, " Maggie stood over her. "You are a very good mother. He wouldn't do that. If anyone should be upset, it should be me! Jamison is a holy terror; just like his father!"

"J.R's no angel either." Carolyn was nursing a glass of sherry with her mother by her side. "But he's so small. I hope William and Jamison are near him."

"They couldn't have been kidnapped, could they?" Roger suggested out loud. Angelique, Carolyn and Maggie lifted their heads in shocked unison. They did not need to be made aware of that possibility!

"Roger," Rachel leaned over him. "They did not need to hear that."

"I kind of feel sorry for those kidnappers." David thought about the behavior and personality of his three nephews and got an even colder response from his cousin Carolyn and the other mothers. Even his Aunt Liz reserved a look for his complacency.

Willie and Quentin came in through the door without Barnabas. The concerned father had walked back to check the Old House. After trips to Rose Cottage on the edge of the estate, the garage, the caretaker's cottage and several caves and sheds, Quentin just returned going straight for the brandy and allowed Willie to make his announcement.

"They made it to the old barn." The former caretaker and manservant to Barnabas Collins announced. "Whatever they pulled  
down brought down part of the roof, but they must have gotten out alive because we found tracks of them dragging something down to the beach below Widow's Hill."

"Well, what could they have got?" Liz asked. "There couldn't have been anything of interest left out there."

"Whatever interests a young boy…" The phone rang next to Quentin. Picking it up, he started responding confusingly, and then happily. "Yes... What? Oh thank god! Yes, thank you! We'll send someone to pick them up." He put down his brandy and turned around with a big smile on his face. "Guess what the Coast Guard found floating forty miles off Portland in an old canoe screaming their heads off?"

"Moe, Larry and Curly…." David replied as Angelique, Carolyn and Maggie all breathed a moment of solace.

"A better description would be the Little Rascals." Rachel added.

PART 5

Three faces sat in the Portland Coast Guard station wrapped in blankets and sipping hot chocolate. The tree faces looked vaguely similar with different looks and styles as they wondered what was going to happen next. They weren't sure how close they had drifted down the coast, but it was more than obvious that the coast guard had brought them the rest of the way. The map on the wall indicated that they were now a hundred miles down the coast; their fathers would not be enjoying the drive. Jamison watched the officers working and carrying on business between talking and laughing with each other. Fearful of jail, he just struggled to stay awake. J.R. was a bit more relaxed drifting on to sleep on William's shoulder while his cousin stirred, scowled and jarred him awake.

"My dad's going to kill me." He spoke out loud.

"My mom's going to kill me." Jamison repeated the same sentiment.

"I'm hungry." J.R. rubbed his tummy and looked at the snack machine. William then heard a car outside and looked out through the binds in the window as his Uncle Quentin's red van pulled into the parking lot. Gravel went everywhere as the family van came to a stop and braked. He listened to three doors open and close and braced for the roof to crash in on them once their fathers entered.

"Excuse me," Barnabas spoke first as he entered and turned to the counter. Waving his cane as he walked and dressed in his usual cloak, he looked to the female dispatcher behind the counter. "We're looking for our sons."

The officer pointed to a room behind them. Directly across from them, the three fathers saw their boys bunched together on one bench drenched to the skin and covered in individual blankets. There were a few seconds of nervous tension that felt like years as Willie bent down before them and checked them over one by one. Quentin smirked amusingly at how far they had reached and Barnabas stood stoically unimpressed as he looked upon his eldest child.

"You want to tell me what got into you?" Willie looked into J.R's face.

"I had fun." The boy answered as Quentin lifted Jamison up to look into his eyes.

"Did you have fun too?" Quentin asked, but Jamison just shrugged his shoulders and sparked with the same charisma his father was known for.

"You scared your mother very badly." Barnabas told William.

"I'm sorry." The boy apologized and leapt out of his blanket as his father took his hand. Gradually cracking a grin, Barnabas straightened the youth's hair with his hand and led him out with his hand on his back.

"Mr. Collins," The dispatcher looked up. "Would you all like the canoe back?"

"Are you kidding?" Quentin remarked as Willie held the door for him.

PART 6

It was almost two o'clock in the morning as Quentin drove the way back to the estate. Jamison was asleep on the back seat with William and J.R. and their Uncle Willie while the van pulled up along the road under the front veranda of the mansion and stopped near the front doors. Too tired to be excited, the boys sleepwalked over the portico, under the front arches to the entrance and readied to face the night ahead. The front doors of the main house swung open from inside as Angelique rushed out to see her boy. Maggie and Quentin cradled Jamison between them as Carolyn dropped down to J.R's size and kissed his sleepy little face.

"Please, mom, not in front of everyone." He mumbled half asleep.

"I was so worried." The matroness of Collinwood squeezed her boy tightly and inhaled the salty ocean air and juvenile delinquency imbedded in his clothes. "Who's idea been this to go out in that old canoe?"

"Jamison." William mumbled as Angelique held him in her arms.

"Uh-Uhhhhhh!" Jamison refused to take the blame.

"Never mind that." Barnabas took charge as proud fathers and contented mothers led their children into the foyer, through the drawing room and into the back hall to the dining room. "These boys are hungry after dragging that heavy canoe to the shore, pushing it into the water, floating off and scaring us all out of our minds. They need dinner."

Maggie returned from the kitchen with out two plates still warming as Angelique carried the third. The boys were set in chairs at the breakfast table. Maggie placed a plate before her son and J.R. and Angelique fed her son. Carolyn carried out three glasses of milk as the boys looked at the meal being placed before them.

"Liver!" They began screaming.

PART 7

Angelique beamed and kissed her little boy as she put him in his own bed to sleep the rest of the night away in the ancestral manor known to the Collins family as the Old House. She stroked the thick tuft of brown hair and ran her hand down his small chest as she tucked him in to his huge canopy bed. Barnabas grinned a bit himself to see himself the father of such a spirited and active young man. Within the boy, he saw his younger brothers Jeremiah and Daniel from lives in the Eighteenth Century and even shared his childhood through him. If anyone had ever told him ten years ago that Angelique would be the mother of his son after all the trouble they had had forwards and backwards in time, he might never had believed it, but the truth was before him as Angelique laid their son to rest.

"Is he still going to be grounded?" Barnabas asked slightly raising his chin as he fought to keep from copying the mannerisms of his long-departed father.

"Of course," Angelique glowed with a mother's instinct. "I want my little man close to me for a couple of days. Something has to turn all that youthful exuberance into another direction… maybe a few chores to keep him busy. Why I bet you were the same way when you were that little."

"That was a very long time ago." Barnabas realized that when his son started considering him three hundred years old that he'd be right. "He has a world that I never had with television, radio, automobiles and all sorts of things I never knew was possible. It's a lot more important that we teach him the Old World lessons we were raised upon."

Angelique grinned slightly as she closed the door and bathed the room in a darkness of dark blue and dark gray. A draft skipped over the room and danced over the boy as if Josette's ghost had drifted in to kiss him good night as well. William opened his eyes and sat up in bed after pretending to be asleep and listening to his parents.

"Like I needed to hear that!" He complained to the darkness.

END


End file.
